Equitable Democratic Schooling:
How much do you know about the out of school life of your elementary school students? What is their access to social development outside of their 8:30 to 3:30 classroom? Depending on where you teach, many students will probably have access to local sports, dance, or other club organizations. But, not all students have the opportunity to socialize with peers outside of school. Some families have barriers created by low-income that result in a one-car or no-car situation. The learning and peer interactions often stop at the end of the school day and does not continue until the next morning. If we are preparing students to be contributing members of society, they need to develop the appropriate social skills. It can be difficult to teach to the diverse learning styles and levels when some students do not see school as a place to learning, but rather as a place to socialize. Most communities provide out of school activities for students like sports teams or clubs, but this requires students to have transportation to and from and some activities are tuition based. The bond between schools, families, and the community should be equitable to all families. Co-curricular activities allow for the attendance of all students and helps to develop social opportunities that might be otherwise unobtainable.
History:
There has often been the thought that if students are kept busy with harmless and beneficial activities, then they wont have the time to get into mischief. But what are the other benefits? To quote The Value of Cocurricular Activities, "students who participate in activity programs tend to have higher grade point averages, better attendance records, lower dropout rates and fewer discipline problems than students who don't participate." (National Federation of State High School Associations [NFHS] 1999) Also, "self-esteem, self-confidence, social cooperation, and leadership skills are just a few of the cognitive factors that are affected. Cocurricular activities allow students to blend aspects of their academic learning into personal actions." (Allison 1979) Presently, this opportunity for growth is not available to all students.
Epistemologies:
Psychological- students are able to extend time with peers in an interactive environment that can replace the time spent at home alone or with a video game/internet/TV
Social- students can interact and build relationships to help build self esteem within the school environment
Behavioral- school becomes more learning driven than socializing driven for students who do not have access to peer interactions outside of school
Economic- school based and funded for families who can't afford to or don't have access to other local opportunities
Sociological- any student attending school can attend co-curricular activities
Questions:
1. I grew up in a community where after school activities were always promoted, and they happened right at my school so that any kid could attend them. Is there a difference in the co-curricula you participated in as a kid and the one your district now provides for elementary students?
2. In knowing how beneficial after school activities can be for students, would you sacrifice some of your afternoons to help provide such opportunities? Even if it was for little to no pay?
3. How have you seen co-curricular activities help the students in your schools? Do you agree that the self-esteem and social skills developed through these experiences should be available to elementary students the way it is to middle school and high school students? Many sports teams meet right after school and have buses to take them to their games, why do you think this enrichment support is not happening in the lower levels?
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My first reaction to Ashley's well-argued position relates to Question #2: while I won't speak to afterschool as I imagine a number of us will take care of that, I DO want to throw the idea of BEFORE school activities into the ring for consideration. I recently learned of a school district in Illinois that is pioneering physical education practices aimed at enhancing neurological performance during the school day. Essentially there is a growing body of research linking physical movement to the release of important neuro-transmitters, and increased neurological function, such that by providing physical movement early in the day, schools are actually seeing improvements in academic performance across all ages and contents.
ReplyDeleteSo to bring it back to Ashley: one barrier to co-curricular activities (particularly athletics) is timing and funding. Now, we have research to justify the integration of these activities into the school day package, particularly if they happen early in the day. Perhaps the success in terms of hard numbers would be the "carrot" schools need to expand their thinking around physical (and therefore social, developmental, etc) activities like sports in schools?